


This Place Is A Maze

by Angelbaby



Category: Halloween Movies - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, Semi-incestuous but also maybe just really close siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 12:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1648949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelbaby/pseuds/Angelbaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angel is scared of herself, she is scared of Michael, she is scared of the kitchen knife and Mom's horrified screams but more than anything else she is scared of losing him, her brother, forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Place Is A Maze

She misses her brother. That’s all there is to it. Angel misses Michael, little Boo misses her big brother, even though she's not supposed to. Angel knows she not supposed to remember her evil, crazy, murderous older brother and she most certainly is not supposed to miss him with every fiber of her being. She is not supposed to remember that short, brief life as Angel. She is not supposed to know there was ever a time before Laurie. She is not supposed to mourn for her life before the murder, before the kitchen knife.  
  
But Angel does a lot of things she isn't supposed to, with missing and remembering always at the top of the list. Laurie Strode is an only child but Angel Myers is not. Michael isn’t here, he isn’t with her, but he should be, he should be. And the the agony of this should but isn't is just overwhelming.  
  
For her, the loss is a psychical ache, a gaping hole, an emptiness. It is pain like someone crudely hacked off her arm or her leg and the wound still hasn’t healed. The cut remains deep and raw, sluggishly bleeding. Half of Angel's soul is gone and only her brother will ever have the missing piece. That might seem a little twisted and a slightly over-dramatic but then again, the Myers have always had a taste for the macabre.  
  
After all, what part of having your older brother kill your older sister, her boyfriend and the old bastard mooching off your mother, what part having your big brother locked up in a mental institution and never mentioned again, what part of your real mother commit suicide, what part of being stolen from your family and sold to the highest bidder by a concerned policeman just trying to do some good isn't twisted and dramatic?  
  
Her new parents rename her Laurie. Her new mom and dad, Mr. and Mrs. Strode, are wholesome and respectable folk. Together the three of them create the kind of sweet, genuine family of all-American upper-middle class dreams. She is tamed, domesticated, such a sweet little girl and the whole neighborhood tries to put that tragedy behind them. It is a good thing Angel remembers who she used to be, as otherwise all the whispering and wooden smiles would seem strange.  
  
Angel's new parents watch her so carefully for signs of madness and violence, smothering her and adoring her but always slightly wary. Somehow, Angel has escaped the bad blood of the Myers family (Angel is more than a name, it's a title, it's a role) but she thinks that trying to prove she isn't a crazed, empty killer, she is actually going to end up driving herself insane.  
  
So Angel learn to answer to Laurie. But the name feels foreign and fake, her mouth stumbling over the different syllables. In her head, she hears Michael calling out "Boo!" as he chases her around the sunny backyard. She can remember, crystal clear, stumbling around on fat toddler legs, she is just leaning how to walk but her older brother is so patience, he'll do anything for her. She hears her mom, the one with long hair and a tired smile, singing "My sweet angel baby, such a pretty girl."  
  
She does her best to ignore the voices and the memories, does her best to just be Laurie. But Angel won't leave, Angel won't die. There are two lives, two people, two souls in the same body, struggling for control.  
  
That's how it all starts.  
  
Michael is four when Angel is born. She is two and Michael is six, she is four and Michael is eight, she is eight and Michael will be twelve, she is twelve and Michael will be sixteen, she is sixteen and Michael will be twenty, she is eighteen and Michael will be twenty two. Angel is eighteen and Michael is twenty two and twelve years have passed since they have seen each other. That isn’t right.  
  
By the time she is thirteen, she knows she will never fully be Laurie Strode. Laurie is a good girl and Angel is stubborn with a long mean streak, so in the end, Angel wins. With each passing day, the pain of Michael's absence grows, threatening to completely overwhelm her. By the time she is fifteen, she is Angel through and through; the Mom, the Michael, the Judy in her head have all fallen silent and just stare at her with dead, empty eyes. Reproachful. When she is sixteen, Angel finally admits she just wants her brother.  
  
She just wants Michael.  
  
Admitting this does not help. Angel was sixteen, she couldn't sleep, she lost weight, dropping pound after pound like a snake shedding its dead skin, she skipped school and ignored her homework. And over and over again, a nightmare where she is followed by a giant man wearing a white mask; he holds a bloody kitchen knife and chases her through the rotting remains on an old, haunted home. Annie and Lynda are shocked and confused by her strange behavior and Angel is too tired to try and explain.  
  
Annie and Lynda are good girls, good friends. Laurie would have loved them, would have adores the perfect, sugar sweet high school girl trio they would have made. Angel wants to love these friends just like Laurie would but some part of her remains cold and distant from them, vaguely annoyed by their harmlessness.  
  
To avoid another Halloween white trash massacre, Mom and Dad take Angel to a therapist. It is all no discussions Laurie, this is what you need, don't be ashamed, there's no need to be embarrassed, you are going through a rough time in your life and need some outside assistance. Angel bites her nails and stares at the car window, wondering how many times the doctors in spotless white coats have told Michael the same thing.  
  
Doctor Pleasent looks like he should be shooing his grandchildren out of his study while he chews on a cigar, living up the golden years in blissful, bored retirement. She feels sorry for him, sitting in his cramped little office day in and day out, listening to whiny, troubled, ill teenagers and nodding thoughtfully to their stories. Angel wonders what would happen if she told him the truth. _The truth is, doctor, I think I'm going crazy, just like my brother. Which is so scary. I don't want to be like that. But maybe if I was, we would be close again, like we used to be. I'm already crazy. I hear my brother in my head, always. He's always there._  
  
"I just don't really know who I am anymore." She said on their sixth meeting. Doctor Pleasent nods thoughtfully, taps his pen against the clipboard, and waited for her to continue. "I mean, I think I know who I am but maybe who I am isn't who my parents want me to be. And...I don't want to disappoint them."  
  
"Why would you disappoint your parents, Laurie?" Doctor Pleasent asked her, calm and gentle and Angel feels an almost overpowering wave of white hot rage. At least the anger isn't hers, it belongs to Michael and she pushes him away in annoyance. _Leave me alone, I'm busy getting my head shrunk._  
  
"There's this boy." Angel explained, spinning out her story, watching with disengaged satisfaction as Doctor Pleasent sighs silently and nods slightly to himself. Boy trouble. So easy to resolve. "He's not trouble, like, he's not into drugs or anything like that, but I just don't think my parents will like him that much. But, like, he's my friend, you know? I don't want to just stop because my parents won't approve."  
  
She meets with Doctor Pleasent once a week for a year and a half, during which time she becomes an even better liar. When Angel starts sleeping again the dream changes, which is neither bad nor good. Every night, the masked giant wraps one hand around her throat and as she gasps for breath she shoots him over and over again, until at some point they both fall to the ground, more or less dead. She  makes excuses and puppy-dog eyes, apologizes to all her teachers, scrawls answers on pages of endless, pointless homework. Mr. and Mrs. Strode forgive her momentary lapse of sanity, thankfully deciding not to hold it against her. Laurie's teachers all purse their lips and nod understandingly and her friends laugh it off; we're just like so glad to have you back Laurie.  
  
Doctor Pleasent tells her that in order to face your fears, you must first understand them. Ask yourself, why does it make you afraid? And then ask yourself how can you move past your fear? So what are you afraid of? She is afraid of her brother, of the psycho boy with a kitchen knife and his older sister's blood on his hands, but she is more afraid of losing him, forever.  
  
On one of the public library ancient computers, Angel searches "Halloween + Haddonfield." Michael is the first result. Through newspaper clippings, she learns that he was committed to Smith's Grove Institution and placed under the care of one Doctor Samantha Loomis. Two years ago a court hearing ruled he would never be released. No getting out early for good behavior.  
  
For her seventeenth birthday, Mom and Dad pay for half of her new laptop. Angel could afford it herself, what with all the money she has saved up from babysitting (she has a small fortune stashed away, after all, since Angel is a very in high demand babysitter. And families in the suburbs pay quite well. She's polite, sweet, from a respectable family and so good with kids.) But Mom and Dad tell her to save the money, keep it for a rainy day, she'll need it in college.  
  
Junior year of high finally comes to an end and Angel is mildly pleased to discover that she makes it through with standardized test scores that would make any college she could possibly choose positively drool. Expectations fulfilled. Because for Laurie Strode to do anything other than ace the ACT is unimaginable.  
  
Mom and Dad don't push the subject, just hum and nod in supportive agreement at whatever ideas she brings up. Maybe a gap year doing community service? Maybe her first two years at a local community college? Mom and Dad would like that, Angel can tell. They would love to keep her close so they can keep an eye on her, continue their self-appointed position of watching for madness in the youngest Myers sibling.  
  
She stopped going to Annie's house after school to work on homework together, stopped spending every free Friday and Saturday night there, because she can not take the pity, the concern, the fear, in Sheriff Brackett's eyes. Michael would kill anyone who looked at him like that, and Angel is tempted to, just to prove Sheriff Brackett right. But Laurie Strode wouldn't kill anyone, ever. Why, Laurie Strode, such a sweet girl, wouldn't even hurt a fly! So Angel won't either.  
  
Unfortunately, her astounding ability to ace a test does not correlate with any desire to attend college. Angel has no interest in the adult world. Or rather, she has no interest in living the rest of her life with this lie, of spending the rest of her life hiding behind the name of Laurie Strode. She can only just remember Judy complaining about college applications and tests; the memories are fuzzy and vague. She does not really remember her sister. Not like she remembers Michael.  
  
In between day trips to the beach with Annie and Lynda and nights spent tucking the neighborhood children into bed, Angel continues to visit the website for Smith Grove Institution, turning the choice over and over in her head. Should she go? She misses her brother. But what will seeing him bring? There will never be any closure. No easy easy answer. You can't fix evil. You can't cure a boy who went and killed his older sister in cold blood right after giving his little Boo her favorite stuffed animal and assuring her the thunderstorm couldn't hurt her.  
  
But he is her brother. Michael is her big brother and nothing will ever change that and she just misses him and Doctor Loomis writes a book about Michael.  
  
The old bitch gets rich and famous off her brother's insanity. Angel feels like she kill someone (again).  
  
The book, "Behind The Eyes Of Evil", is proudly displayed at the local bookstore, under a battered cardboard sign proclaiming "new arrivals". Angel is taking Tommy to the bookstore, a nice daytrip while the carpet flooring is cleaned, because Mrs. Doyle is absolutely positive they have contracted bedbugs from the cleaning lady (a suburban conundrum if she ever heard one).   
  
Tommy doesn't notice but Angel trips, stumbles through the door, because her heart is suddenly racing, pounding so hard it hurts and she can't breathe.  Inside, propped up against the cash register, is her brother's cold, empty face, staring out at her beneath a title and tag line.  
  
Only a handful of people know who Angel is, remember that one Myers still lives among them. Although Haddonfield loves to gossip about that Halloween night (a few years back now, such a scandal, shocked the town, always knew there was something wrong with that boy) few really know the details. Her cover story is safe. So when Tommy asks, "Wow, what's that?" the cashier doesn't even blink before giving all the juicy details.  
  
"Oh, just some local shrink. She works at a mental ward and worked with this patient for like fifteen years but I guess he's like a real psycho, 'cause she's been pushing for him to just stay locked up. That's what the book is all about. Pretty freaky looking kid, right?"  
  
And Angel thinks, idly, that just a few years ago, she looked like that.  
  
The Myer's house had been an old, decrepit house even before the murders. Back then, it had been haunted by mice and squirrels, not shadowy shapes holding kitchen knives and neighborhood gossip.  
  
One time, Deborah had been cleaning out the cupboard and uncovered six newborn baby mice, tiny, pink, hairless things that could easily fit into a teaspoon. Abandoned, or more likely, orphaned by one of her mousetraps. She had planned to scoop them up into a paper bag, pop the bag into the freezer and toss the bag in the trash the next day (a trick she had learned from her father).  
  
But when Angel had caught sight of the pink globs Deborah was trying to dispose of, she went into hysterics. Even the very mention of mousetraps was enough for her to throw a tantrum. The actually murder of baby mice had her wailing and howling, kicking the floor over the sheer injustice of her mother's overwhelming cruelty.  
  
Michael, not surprisingly, had sided with Angel, peering curiously down at the sticky, shivering little things that lay at the bottom of a convenient tupperware container. Even Judy cares, gently poking one with her finger and frowning, trying to hide her interest. To kill the mice off now would be truly heartless and Deborah just couldn't say no to those pleading faces, three Myers children for once united against a common cause.  So with a sigh, she had called up the local pet store, yes, hello, I have six newborn mice that I need to keep alive and healthy if any of them die my children will never forgive me how much do cages cost?  
  
Deborah spent easily a hundred dollars at the pet store. She  bought bedding, the proper food, syringes to spoon feed the helpless globs and little metals exercise wheels that she knows will soon wobble and squeak and keep her up all night. It's stupid to be wasting this much time and energy on mice, fucking baby mice but she does it anyway, listening attentively to everything the store associate says, knowing he stares at her tits the entire time.  
  
She showed Michael and Angel how to create a warm nest of shredded paper for the mice, showed them how to fill the syringe with the green liquid she'd been told to buy (you can buy anything at the pet store, apparently, even manufactured, chemically processed, imitation mother's milk for baby mice). Deborah thought it would be her doing all the work, cleaning the cage and feeding the mice, trying to insert the tip of the syringe into the nearly invisible mouth. But Angel and Michael adopt surprisingly well to their new responsibilities.  
  
Angel doesn't know why she is remembering this all of the sudden, but the picture of her brother has brought back all these memories. Judy had said the baby mice would die off in a week and Mom had just twisted up her lips, fucking hope not do you know how much this all cost. And somehow, against all odds, the mice had survived. Elvis, Spot, Sparkle, Franklin, Pickle, Sunshine. Angel named most of them, although Michael was the only one who could tell them all apart. She wonders what happened to those mice, after Michael was sent away and Mom put a bullet through her brain.  
  
They all starved to death probably, with no eager children to pour too much food in the bowl. That, or turned on one another, fighting to death and eating the corpses until there was only one left. Bloated and bloody, who escaped from the cage to live in the crumbling walls, eating all other vermin that dared to cross its path.  
  
She wonders if Michael remembers their mice.  
  
"Cool. Can I get it?" Tommy says, reaching for the book. Angel pulls his hands away, shaking her head with a smile, playing Laurie, playing the good girl while inside she is completely overwhelmed with memories, her brother's picture a knife in her heart.  
  
"Sorry Tommy, I don't think so. Something tells me your mother wouldn't find that age appropriate reading material." They leave the bookstore some time later without Doctor Loomis's helpful insight into what lies behind the eyes of evil.  
  
There is a train that can take her up to Smith's Grove. She will have to take the train down into the city and then transfer to a different train, which will take her out to a different suburb where she should find a bus that will take her up to the institute, three hours each way. Visitors are allowed Monday through Saturday only, no exceptions.  
  
A business number is listed on the website for Doctor Loomis and Angel speaks to the secretary in her most sugary sweet voice. "Yes, hello, my name is Laurie Strode and I'm a student journalist. I'm working on an extracurricular project for school and I was wondering if it would be possible for me to interview Doctor Loomis? I'm looking at misdiagnoses in children, especially with ADD and ADHD." Blah, blah, blah, lies slipping easily off her tongue. Doctor Loomis would be more than happy to speak with, Lauren was it, but please do try to be on time, Doctor Loomis is a very busy woman.  
  
Saturday, Angel tells her parents she has a lot of homework to do, a couple big projects. She's going to the library to study, no distractions around, don't worry, I'll have my cell phone and be home by nine. Mom and Dad think this is a fine idea, to have Laurie out of the house so they have worriedly analyze her recent behavior.  
  
The past couple months have been harsh and bleak, coldest winter in forty years. But there is a definite feeling of spring in the air today and Angel sloshes towards the train station in her hot pink plaid rainboots, puddles of melted snow steaming in the sunlight. She puts five dollars on a day card, pulls up the electronic ticket on her phone and settles in for the long trip.  
  
Angel is a bundle of nerves, butterflies in her stomach, feeling queasy, anxious, excited, scared. She drums her fingers on the edge of her phone the whole three hours on the train, scenery outside changing from suburbs to slums to city skyscrapers to suburbs again. When she darts across the street from the train stop to bus, the driver smiles at her and says "Having a good day?" Angel tries to return the smile.  
  
"Sorry, can you tell me when the stop is for Smith's Grove. It's my first time up here."  
  
"Sure thing, honey. You visiting someone up there?"  
  
The words "My brother" feel both strange and perfectly natural. Angel stares out the window and thinks of all the times her mother made this trip, once a week for months, to visit her psychotic, murdering son. Will she too end up eating a gun six months from now, driven over the edge by grief?  
  
Or will she end up in a nice white room right next to her brother, Myers, A and Myers, M?  
  
Smith Grove looks exactly like Angel imagined, impeccably trimmed trees and bushes, perfectly mowed green grass, a collection of neat white buildings all in a row. Like a strand of pearls on a lady's necklace. She can see a high metal fence that surrounding a large smooth lawn and connects back to the building but no fence at the driveway where the bus drops her. No gate she has to walk through, no test to pass to be allowed to stare into the eyes of evil.  
  
Walk up the gravel driveway, don't be sick, don't be sick, don't pass out. The air is absolutely silent and still. Angel fights the urge to scream, loudly, anything to break the deathly quiet. No birds, no wind, no nothing. The whole world is holding itself breath, waiting to see what will happen next.  
  
At the desk in the main building, Angel smiles brightly at the receptionist. "Hi, I'm Laurie Strode. I'm here to visit Doctor Loomis? I'm interviewing her for a school project."  
  
The receptionist points to a chair, phone already cradled between her shoulder and ear, fingers  flying over the keypad. Sit, stay, wait. Angel sits and chews on her lower lip, tries to be still, tries to appear sane, as sane as one could ever really look while visiting family in an insane asylum. The receptionist sets the phone down, stares stoney-faced at Angel. "It'll just be a few minutes."  
  
It's just thirty minutes more when a guard arrives, looking uncomfortable in his stiff, white uniform, handcuffs and a baton strapped to his waist. Angel stares, because honestly, who the fuck would willing work here? "Right this way, miss." She follows him. Her pink rainboots are dripping water and squeaking with every step she takes, the only sound in the otherwise empty halls, bouncing and echoing off the white walls.  
  
"What's it like, working here?" Angel asks her guide when they are in the elevator. She just wants to break the silence. He answers, droning on and on about the crazies he has to keep in line and she tunes him out. Angel can sense her brother. She knows he is nearby, because the constant white noise that is always buzzing around her head is slowly fading, growing quieter with each step deeper into the asylum she takes. Her heart mimics his, not beating until Michael's does, little sister following big brother's lead.  
  
"Here we are." The guard says, now all relaxed and friendly smiles. Doctor Loomis's office door is slightly open and he knocks twice. "Loomis, Laurie Strode girl here for you." She feels slightly bad for not listening to a word he said, smiles shyly and mumbles thank you before slipping inside the office.  
  
The woman sits at her desk, scribbling away on a yellow legal pad. She holds a hand up in Angel's direction, one finger raised in a 'wait' signal, eyes never leaving the paper. Angel waits, again, and surveys the woman Michael so hates. Samantha Loomis is tall and thin, with greying brown hair pulled away from a lined, tired face into a messy half-braid, held in place with a giant plastic tortoise clip. Her fingers are bare, no rings of any kind and Angel wonders if Michael ruined this woman's life too, if he took away everything she loved.  
  
Finally, Doctor Loomis sets the pencil down and turns, a greeting on her politely curved lips. But the words die in her throat and she just stares. Angel can read the confusion, the wary uncertainty, the slight fear, on her face and she tilts her head slightly. She feels like she is looking down at Doctor Loomis from a great, tall distance.  
  
"Laurie Strode?" Doctor Loomis asks and Angel shakes her head.  
  
"No. I'm Angel Myers."  
  
Doctor Loomis nods carefully and Angel can see that her answer is not entirely unexpected. "I thought so. You look like him, you know. Michael."  
  
Angel's heart starts racing at that, beating so fast it hurts, and she reminds herself to breathe, in and out, stay calm. "I want to see him." She says, simply, although what she meant to say is I **need** to see **my brother**.  
  
Now it is Doctor Loomis's turn to tilt her head and curiously consider the girl standing before her. "You are his sister?" It is the kind of question that doesn't need an answer. "Michael hasn't had any visitors in a long time." They both know Michael hasn't had any visitors since he killed the nurse, since Deborah put a bullet through her head, since Angel become Laurie. "Do your parents know you are here, Angel? Because if you are here alone, without their permission, I really can't allow you to see him."  
  
She respond with "I'm eighteen," which is sort of the answer to the question and sort of not. Because Mr. and Mrs. Strode don't need to know she is here and Angel is eighteen and Michael is twenty-two that is twelve years since they have see each other she doesn't even know what her brother looks like anymore, so "Please?"  
  
Angel didn't really think about what she would do if Doctor Loomis said no, and for one heart-stopping minute she thinks that Loomis will refuse. She does not know what she will do if she is refused. Yes, she does.  
  
With a sigh and a slight shake of her head, Doctor Loomis gives in. "I can't let you visit him, officially. There is all sort of protocol and red type we would need to get around for you to be allowed in the same room as him; of course, we consider Michael to be a highly dangerous patient. But, I can let you see him, today, just for a short time."  
  
Which is not enough, but it is a start, a good start. Angel forgets how to breath for a moment, has a slight lapse, as Loomis stands and redoes her hair, twisting the hair back and catching it in the clip more securely. They leave the office, Doctor Loomis confidently leading the way through the maze of white walls and barred windows, her heels a sharp clack on the floor and Angel's still squelching with each step.  
  
Half sentences and partial phrases reach Angel's ears. Doctor Loomis speaks with a gentle, overly delicate tone, perhaps afraid that saying the wrong thing will set her off. "Angel, Michael is...very sick. I just want you to prepare yourself for that. He has been unresponsive to many of the typical treatments and the situation was complicated with your mother's death. At this point I think we have done all we can for him." Doctor Loomis stops, turns, places a hand on Angel's arm, motherly concern radiating from her body. "Angel, he's not really ever going to get better."  
  
But that's not what she wants. She doesn't want him to get better, to be cured, to be normal. Angel just wants Michael, her brother, crazy murderer that he is and always will be. So she just nods, silent and continues to follow Doctor Loomis.  
  
Through one, two, three locked doors, white tile floor turns to grey carpet, white walls become faded mint, a few shades away from the color of bile. "This is the observation room." Doctor Loomis explains, like Angel would care. "Michael tends not to interact with the other patients and we don't normally allow him the chance to, given what he's done. But we try to get him out of his room, for at least a few hours a day. We feel a change of scenery is necessary for his well being."  
  
One more locked door and then the two of them are in a little room with one glass wall and a half circle of chairs looking out. The glass looks out at a larger room, white walls, white floor, white tables and chairs, barred windows, glaring yellow light. Someone sits at one of the tables, facing away from the glass. Angel knows, with every fiber of her body, that this is Michael. Because he is sitting just like she does, hunched forward and shoulders curving inwards protectively. Doctor Loomis is talking again, mumbling hurriedly in Angel's ear but it is all just white noise.  
  
She is cold and blank, absolutely empty. Michael is there, right there and Angel steps forward until her breath fogs the glass. She is surprised to realize, seeing in her reflection, that she is crying. Because Angel misses her brother so much, she had missed him for so long.  
  
He turns then, like he can sense that Angel is there. Michael is wearing a crude orange mask, and Doctor Loomis has her hand on Angel's shoulder. The woman's fingers tighten, nails digging into her flesh. Her brother stands up, pushes the table away and he is so tall; Angel feels like a toddler again, lying worn out on the lawn and looking up at her brother's face, which had seemed so far away. She sees how slight she would be next to him, how little she must seem to him. She also sees how they would fit into each other, nestle together perfectly if standing side by side.  
  
Michael shouldn't be able to see her, hidden behind as she is behind the one-way mirror. He shouldn't know that she is there. But somehow, he does. He knows. Doctor Loomis is talking, voice growing louder and louder and she pulls away from Angel. But that is all in the background, absolutely meaningless. Michael is walking over to the glass, slowly. And Angel presses one hand up to the mirror, palm and fingers flat against the cold surface, holding her breath, crying.  
  
It's not enough, but it is a start, a good start, when Michael presses his hand to the opposite side of the mirror. They are almost touching, separated by just a thin layer of glass. Angel's hand is tiny and delicate up against his, like the cold hand of a little doll. And for once her mind is quiet, utterly silent, because silence is what Michael brings.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse or even really explanation for this. The age difference between Michael and Angel as well as their various ages in the story have no basis in either the original film or the remake; I couldn't remember the exact details when I first started writing this, so I honestly just went with what first came to mind. The same goes for Doctor Loomis's gender switch; I just took the idea and ran with it.


End file.
